NAME

       SELinux - NSA Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux)

DESCRIPTION

       NSA  Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is an implementation of a flexible mandatory access
       control architecture in the Linux operating system.   The  SELinux  architecture  provides
       general  support  for  the enforcement of many kinds of mandatory access control policies,
       including those based on the concepts of Type Enforcement®, Role-  Based  Access  Control,
       and  Multi-Level  Security.   Background  information  and  technical  documentation about
       SELinux can be found at http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux.

       The  /etc/selinux/config  configuration  file  controls  whether  SELinux  is  enabled  or
       disabled,  and  if enabled, whether SELinux operates in permissive mode or enforcing mode.
       The SELINUX variable may be set to any one of disabled, permissive, or enforcing to select
       one  of  these  options.   The  disabled option completely disables the SELinux kernel and
       application code,  leaving  the  system  running  without  any  SELinux  protection.   The
       permissive  option  enables  the  SELinux  code,  but causes it to operate in a mode where
       accesses that would be denied by policy are permitted but audited.  The  enforcing  option
       enables the SELinux code and causes it to enforce access denials as well as auditing them.
       Permissive mode may yield a different set of denials than  enforcing  mode,  both  because
       enforcing mode will prevent an operation from proceeding past the first denial and because
       some application code will fall back to a less privileged  mode  of  operation  if  denied
       access.

       The  /etc/selinux/config  configuration  file  also  controls what policy is active on the
       system.  SELinux allows for multiple policies to be installed on the system, but only  one
       policy  may  be  active  at  any given time.  At present, multiple kinds of SELinux policy
       exist: targeted, mls for example.  The targeted policy is designed as a policy where  most
       user  processes  operate  without restrictions, and only specific services are placed into
       distinct security domains that are confined by the policy.  For example,  the  user  would
       run in a completely unconfined domain while the named daemon or apache daemon would run in
       a specific domain tailored to its operation.  The MLS  (Multi-Level  Security)  policy  is
       designed  as  a  policy  where  all  processes  are partitioned into fine-grained security
       domains and confined by policy.  MLS also supports the  Bell  And  LaPadula  model,  where
       processes are not only confined by the type but also the level of the data.

       You  can  define which policy you will run by setting the SELINUXTYPE environment variable
       within /etc/selinux/config.  You must reboot and possibly relabel if you change the policy
       type  to  have  it  take effect on the system.  The corresponding policy configuration for
       each such policy must be installed in the /etc/selinux/{SELINUXTYPE}/ directories.

       A given SELinux policy can be customized further based on a set  of  compile-time  tunable
       options  and a set of runtime policy booleans.  system-config-selinux allows customization
       of these booleans and tunables.

       Many domains that are protected by SELinux also include SELinux man pages  explaining  how
       to customize their policy.

FILE LABELING

       All  files,  directories,  devices ... have a security context/label associated with them.
       These context are stored in the extended attributes of the  file  system.   Problems  with
       SELinux  often  arise from the file system being mislabeled. This can be caused by booting
       the machine with a non SELinux kernel.  If you see an  error  message  containing  file_t,
       that  is  usually  a  good  indicator  that  you  have  a serious problem with file system
       labeling.

       The best way to relabel the file system is to  create  the  flag  file  /.autorelabel  and
       reboot.    system-config-selinux,  also  has  this  capability.   The  restorecon/fixfiles
       commands are also available for relabeling files.

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Dan Walsh <dwalsh@redhat.com>.

FILES

       /etc/selinux/config

SEE ALSO

       booleans(8), setsebool(8), sepolicy(8), system-config-selinux(8), togglesebool(8),
       restorecon(8), fixfiles(8), setfiles(8), semanage(8), sepolicy(8)

       Every confined service on the system has a man page in the following format:

       <servicename>_selinux(8)

       For example, httpd has the httpd_selinux(8) man page.

       man -k selinux

       Will list all SELinux man pages.